


rise above the ash and dirt

by potato_writes



Series: a series of imperceptible shifts [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Secret Relationship, sort of post apocalyptic sort of sci fi?, there are emotions in this but I cannot describe them for the life of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes
Summary: It’s not a surprise when her world falls, though for many others it is.or, brienne at the end of the world.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: a series of imperceptible shifts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012446
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	rise above the ash and dirt

**Author's Note:**

> one part left, folks. it won't clarify anything, but it'll be over, and this series can release its hold on me. I can also stop posting fic while trying to procrastinate on math. hopefully.
> 
> title from ghost quartet once again. clearly I am a predictable human being with predictable habits.

It’s not a surprise when her world falls, though for many others it is.

She’s angry about it, at first, about the fact that he _warned_ them, risked life and limb to let them know of the danger despite their hatred for him. And they ignored him, laughed his words off as those of a man who’d spent too long at the veil, who’d finally cracked under the strain of all the things they were making him do. Even his brother, who really should know better, passed it off as madness or foolishness or an attempt to lead them into a trap.

But she knew. She knew the instant she heard that he was telling the truth, that she needed to take as many as would heed her and flee before it was too late. And though it shocked her just how many were willing to believe, it’s still not enough. There are still so many dead, so many taken by the darkness and reduced to ashes and dust and memory as their ship full of survivors, now refugees from a dead world, flies away, weaving into the veil between worlds, the only place where they can escape the darkness.

Where he is, somewhere.

She didn’t bother going to the rulers, already aware how futile a task that would be. They would give her more of those pitying smiles, say _isn’t it terrible, how he manipulated her so, how she still believes in him when he admitted his crimes to her face_ , and she would turn away with tears in her eyes, knowing they’ve doomed themselves to death and destruction because they just won’t _listen_. 

Her father would not come either, turned his back and told her she would have to do this on her own if she insisted on such foolishness. And she did not challenge him, because she is tired of fighting, tired of being among the few to realize how much danger they are in and act to save their people from the darkness. 

Part of her regrets that she did not try harder, that her father has died without knowing the secrets she keeps, the marriage she continues to hide even though many of the survivors are busy praising her husband as their saviour. But what would he have said, had he known? Would he have given her the same pity as the leaders did? Would he have accepted that his daughter loved the man they all call monster now?

Doubt has kept her from doing many things in the days since they banished the man she loves, and it will keep her from doing more now that they are dead, lost to the darkness along with the rest of her world. She does not dare tell the survivors to chart the course she wants, to seek him out in the hidden realms between worlds. They are still reeling from grief and horror, from watching their world be consumed by darkness until nothing but ashes are left. It would not be fair of her to make them go look for a man they called villain up until today.

She will not be that selfish, _cannot_ be that selfish. Not when she has so many to take care of now, as she looks around the ship full of refugees, some crying, some frozen from horror, some curled into corners as if that will protect them from memories they cannot shake. Her own wants can wait, will wait, at least until they are more settled, until they are no longer reeling from the crumbling foundations of everything they’ve ever known.

Then, and only then, she can go looking. They have waited so long to be reunited. A little longer cannot hurt them any more than they already have been.


End file.
